Tech advice for pots on new Partsocaster

[chrisheyes]

Hiya



I'm putting together a h-s-h super strat, shown below. Nailbomb bridge (4 core), Mothers Milk middle and Mule neck (2 core)




I've got some good pots to use for the volume and tone (250K) but should I use these or get some 500K ones as it's loaded mainly with humbuckers ?

Thanks

Chris

[FELINEGUITARS]

Use 500k pots

[badgermark]

Using 500k for a single will make it brighter, maybe unwantedly so. Conversely, using 250k for the humbucker would make them darker sounding with less treble.

Think on Fender's humbucker equipped guitars they use 250k pots. Personally I'd try to get the best of both worlds, when i had my HSS strat i set it up with 2 volumes, a 500k for the humbucker and 250 for the singles. Might not work in your case, never tried a HSS setup.

Best bet is probably trying both combinations out. If i remember correctly the value of the tone control isn't as important as the volume's.

[chrisheyes]

Cheers Feline & Badgermark   :D

I'll get some 500K's ordered

Chris

[Philly Q]

Think on Fender's humbucker equipped guitars they use 250k pots.

Yeah, I think you're right, the HSS ones use 250K.  I had a Double Fat Strat with 2 humbuckers, which was pretty bright - I always assumed it had 500K pots but the specs on the Fender site say two 500K pots and one 250K pot - so presumably it was the tone pots which were 500K. :?

If it's a bright guitar I'd be inclined to try 250K first, but that's just personal opinion, it may not be the "best" choice.

[chrisheyes]

I forgot to ask about the capacitor - Doh !!

i'll try setting up the guitar with both 250 and 500k pots

What value capacitor should i use with each ??

Chris

[Philly Q]

The standard cap value to use with humbuckers is 0.022 - I'd probably go with that regardless of the pot value.

I believe Fender used to use 0.05 (or 0.047) with single-coils, but now they mostly use 0.022 as well.

The higher the value of the cap, the more treble you lose when you turn the tone control down.

[AndyR]

^ Yeah, what they all said...

Just wanted to say nice looking body - I'm starting to wonder about this partsocaster lark as well...

[HTH AMPS]

use a 500k volume pot to get the most out of the humbucker then use 500k resistors on the switch for the single coils - this brings the volume pot value down to 250k (500k pot in parallel with 500k fixed resistor to ground = 250k) on the single coil settings meaning that the single coil tones are not overly bright.

[AndyR]

^ Hey, that's clever... why didn't we all think of that?  :?

Actually, the insides of my Dano have what seems a spurious resistor in it - I'd been wondering what it's for... I might open her up again and have a little poke around.